Malema in the News: Botswanan Opposition Declines Malema’s Help to Topple Ian Khama

Julius Malema continues to be An Inconvenient Youth, as Fiona Forde’s apt title for her latest book on the ANCYL president suggests. He is back in the news; this time because of his statement that he will “establish a command team” to help opposition parties in Botswana topple the ruling party.

This statement has not only been criticised by the ANC leadership, but Botswanan opposition parties have also lambasted Malema. Writing in The Botswana Gazette, Botswana National Front campaign manager Eitlhopha Mokeresete says that Malema’s words were “insensitive and untimely”. The Botswanan opposition parties have made their own inroads “maintaining cohesion and galvanised support”, and far from helping them, Malema’s statements could undermine the progress they’ve made so far:

Malema’s statement that Botswana is a “puppet of the imperialist United States” and that they “will establish a command team” to help opposition parties topple the ruling BDP has been received with mixed feelings.

What is clear cut is, it has sent shivers down the spines of many Batswana. While others receive it with pomp and excitement, a greater majority I guess are apprehensive, not because of the possible results of the implementation of that execution, but rather the implications of the said statements may have on the two ruling parties and by extension their governments.

• Read the complete article in The Botswana Gazette

Meanwhile, the Daily Maverick reports that the ANC is going ahead with formulating charges against Malema, following his statements on Botswana:

Senior ANC sources have told Daily Maverick that the party is going ahead with formulating charges against ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema and some of his fellow leaders, including the league’s foul-mouthed spokesman Floyd Shivambu.

Details of what these charges entail have not yet been revealed, and the charge sheets have apparently not been delivered to the league yet.

• Read the complete article at the Daily Maverick

Book details

• An Inconvenient Youth: Julius Malema and the ‘New’ ANC by Fiona Forde
  EAN: 9781770101975
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New by Unity Dow and Max Essex: Saturday is for Funerals, a Dispatch of Hope from Botswana’s HIV/AIDS Front

In the year 2000 the World Health Organization estimated that 85% of fifteen-year-olds in Botswana would eventually die of AIDS. In Saturday is for Funerals we learn that won’t happen.

Unity Dow and Max Essex tell the true story of lives ravaged by AIDS-of orphans, bereaved parents, and widows; of families who devote most Saturdays to the burial of relatives and friends. We witness the actions of community leaders, medical professionals, research scientists, and educators of all types to see how an unprecedented epidemic of death and destruction is being stopped in its tracks.

This book describes how a country responded in a time of crisis. In the true-life stories of loss and quiet heroism, activism and scientific initiatives, we learn of new techniques that dramatically reduce rates of transmission from mother to child, new therapies that can save lives of many infected with AIDS, and intricate knowledge about the spread of HIV, as well as issues of confidentiality, distributive justice, and human rights. The experiences of Botswana offer practical lessons along with the critical element of hope.

The experiences of Botswana offer practical lessons along with the critical element of hope.

About the authors

Unity Dow is a judge of the Interim Constitutional Court of Kenya and the author of four novels.

Max Essex is Lasker Professor of Health Sciences at Harvard University and has been involved in AIDS research from the earliest days of the U.S. epidemic in 1982.

Book details

• Saturday is for Funerals by Unity Dow, Max Essex
  EAN: 9780674050778
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Author biographies courtesy Harvard University Press